


In Which Dean is Still Too Young to Drive

by Aderam



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Weechesters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-03-30
Updated: 2010-03-30
Packaged: 2017-10-08 13:09:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,664
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/75967
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aderam/pseuds/Aderam
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>John burst out laughing. "You're too young for a learner's permit," he managed after a few more minutes. "But I've already made myself one!" Dean pointed out helpfully.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	In Which Dean is Still Too Young to Drive

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Dean-focused hurt/comfort challenge at hoodie_time on LJ. Prompt #5 _Dean with appendicitis. Bonus if it's wee!Dean. Gen please! :) _ from whisper99 on LJ.

Sam's leg was definitely broken. Dean could tell just by looking at it.

Crap.

"I'm okay," Sammy assured him in true Winchester fashion, biting his lip and panting heavily while he suppressed a more vocal reaction.

"Bullshit," Dean replied preventing Sam from moving while keeping an ear out for the rustling sound of their father or, knowing their luck, the monster returning. The forest was eerily quiet, which was perversely reassuring for Dean, and the sound of Sam's breathing echoed in the underbrush, which was not.

"Take your brother and get out of here," John had yelled at him as he took off running and shooting after the mass of teeth, claws and fur which they'd been hunting.

"I hate to say I told you so, Sammy," Dean said as he picked up Sam's dropped shotgun and made sure that it was unloaded before fitting it along Sam's shin as a make-shift splint. The barrel was pretty much the same length as Sam's lower leg and Dean tried to remember when Sam had gotten so tall. The kid was still a little squirt but Dean was fairly certain he hadn't been this size when he'd been ten. Not that he would tell the little brat that.

Sam groaned and Dean smiled. There was definitely some long-suffering younger brother mixed with the pain in that groan.

"Does this mean you'll listen to me when I tell you you're too young to come on hunts with us?" Dean asked trying to keep Sam's mind off the pain in his leg.

"This is just a minor set-back," Sam insisted his voice high with strain. "The same thing happened to you when you started."

"A broken arm is nothing like a broken leg," Dean insisted talking over the small cry Sam let out as Dean tightened the last knot to secure the splint. "Right," he said brow furrowed. "Do you think you can move if I help you? Or do you need me to carry you back to the car?"

Sam's face was white and sweaty, nearly luminous in the darkness, but he managed to glare weakly at his older brother. "Just help me up," he insisted.

Heartened by his brother's defiance, Dean grinned and shoved his gun into Sam's still small hands. "Hold that," he instructed.

Dean was thankful for the extra couple of inches he'd gained over the past few months. Even though he was only ten, Sam was no lightweight and Dean grunted with the load as he draped Sam's arm over his shoulders and gripped his brother tightly under his armpit. Sam's right leg, secured in its make-shift splint, hung protected between the two of them and Dean took his gun back with his free right hand – just in case.

"Hold on," Dean directed his brother unnecessarily as he started to move them slowly back in the direction of the Impala. Sam's teeth were gritted tightly and his face contorted with pain, but his hand gripped Dean's shoulder so tightly it was definitely going to leave bruises.

The forest around them was still silent so Dean didn't try to rush them on the way back to the car. He strained over the sound of Sammy's breathing for any indication of how their father was doing with their target. Perhaps, Dean thought – although he would never have admitted it to Sam – they should have done a bit more research before they'd gone out hunting in the middle of the night.

"Fuck, Sammy," Dean said lifting his brother bodily over a fallen log. "What have you been eating? Bricks?"

~

John got back to the Impala almost an hour after Dean and Sam had arrived. Dean had given Sam one of the Tylenol Threes which had been left over from when Dean had dislocated his shoulder three months ago.

("I was playing football with the older kids," Dean had explained with a charming smile and a rueful grimace for the red-headed ER nurse who was triaging him. She'd thought he was cute.)

Sam had been drifting in and out of consciousness since then, but he didn't look like he was in as much pain as before and his breathing was strong, so Dean counted it a win.

John was scowling and covered in dirt and leaves. Dean took a wild guess and figured that he hadn't caught the whatever-it-was.

"How's Sam?" he grunted opening the trunk to stow his gun inside.

"It's definitely broken," Dean replied. "I gave him some codeine, but he needs the hospital. I already got out the right ID."

John looked in on Sam, who was currently unconscious in the backseat. He checked Dean's splint and patted Sam lightly on the head before nodding in approval and getting into the driver's seat. Dean got in the passenger side and did up his seat belt.

"Remember to take the gun off before we get to the hospital," John reminder him. "We don't want to have to answer those types of questions."

Dean nodded grimly and watched the road as they sped off toward the hospital. It was a universal law that John Winchester would always know the way to the hospital and the bar.

Sam moaned quietly as they went over a pretty nasty bump. John looked worriedly into the rear-view mirror to check on him, and sped up. He was always much better at caring for his sons when he wasn't in the middle of a hunt.

"You know," Dean pointed out in what he hoped was a reasonable tone of voice, "if you'd teach me to drive I could have gotten him to the hospital much faster."

John snorted. "You're not tall enough to reach the peddles," he countered, but his mouth was curving up slightly in a deformed smile.

"I am too! And have been for ages," Dean tried not to sound like a petulant child, and failed miserably.

John smiled, but he didn't dignify Dean with a response and he didn't let his foot up off the gas. Dean still counted it as another win.

~

They managed to get Sam processed and treated with a minimum of fuss.

("We were hiking through the forest with some friends," Dean lied to the nurse. She was older this time, like a TV grandma, and not really worthy of flirting.

"At night?" she asked, incredulous.

"I didn't say it was a good idea," Dean responded, too tired to come up with a good reason.

"I'm going to kill Andy Sutherland," John proclaimed loudly. He was always best at playing the angry father role. "That boy is nothing but trouble!")

The insurance information Dean had pulled out of the trunk hadn't even required a second look and the three of them got back to their motel room just past dawn.

Sammy was looking pale and tired, but his leg had been set and put in a cast and he now had his own bottle of really nice pain killers. He was going to be fine.

("His leg is broken," the young doctor replied looking boredly at Sam's x-ray with considerably less enthusiasm than even four in the morning deserved.

No shit, thought Dean with tired malice.)

John sighed as he took the keys out of the ignition and looked back at Sam who had fallen asleep again in the back seat.

"School starts in two weeks," John said deliberately.

Dean shot him a suspicious look; he had purposefully been avoiding mentioning it to their father in the vain hope that maybe he'd forget. It wouldn't have been the first time. Sam was looking forward to it at least. Dean waited for John to continue.

"We should set up around here somewhere," John mused, mostly to himself. "Get you two in school. It'll be easier on Sam not to be on the move while he's healing."

"How long?" Dean asked.

John peered out the car window at the sun big and orange just above the horizon, its rays burnishing the clouds in golds and reds. "At least until Sam's leg is better," he decided opening the car door and getting out. Dean followed. "Maybe longer. We'll see."

Dean grabbed his room key and went to unlock the door. John nudged Sammy awake gently and then carried him in his strong arms through the door Dean was holding for them.

~

The next two weeks were a whirlwind of activity: looking after Sammy and his bum leg, finding and moving into an apartment, and enrolling Dean and Sam in new schools. To top it all off Dean spent any remaining moment researching the whatever-it-was which had broken Sam's leg and got them into this mess in the first place. The whatever-it-was – Krenshar apparently – had been living in the forests around their new temporary home for the last ten years at least. Dean produced multiple articles from the local paper about various victims, and managed to find a good lore book in the local library with information on how to kill it – silver bullets, naturally. John smiled approvingly and they'd left Sam hobbling around the apartment on crutches and sulking because he wasn't able to go with them and the two of them went back to the forest and killed it. Dean even got the killing blow.

("So," Dean said in his most persuasive voice, hoping that John's pride might have softened his former resolve. "Driving..." Dean waved at the steering wheel with an expansive gesture.

John burst out laughing. "You're too young for a learner's permit," he managed after a few more minutes.

"But I've already made myself one!" Dean pointed out helpfully.

John just gave him another look and the subject was closed.)

With everything that needed to get done Dean almost managed to forget that school was starting up again. Almost.

~

The first day of school always sucked. Dean couldn't figure out whether it sucked more or less when his first day of school was the same as everyone else's. When he was the only new kid in the class and joining in the middle of the school year there was always the embarrassing moment singled out in front of the class, followed by lies about his family and his father's job –

("My Dad's a Marine, we move around a lot.")

("He's a mechanic. Just got a new job.")

("Dad's a doctor. We had to move here because some bitch accused him of malpractice.")

("Dad's really a famous rock star. We're lying low to avoid the press.")

("We're in witness protection.")

– which was then followed by various degrees of belief and posturing from both the girls and boys in his new class. Of course, it never helped that they usually stayed in smaller towns so a new face – whenever it might show up – was always a novelty.

The first day of the school year at least had a bit more anonymity, or at the very least normality. Even in small schools where the classes were basically identical from one year to the next a new kid at the beginning of the year was never particularly surprising. So yeah, that part was nice, but the first day of school also meant assemblies, lesson plans, name games and pretending that he was actually going to be there for the end of the year.

Dean loathed assemblies.

Which is why Dean scowled, arms crossed over his chest as he slumped in his seat in the auditorium being forced to listen to his latest principal wax poetic about the high school experience.

"Welcome to the best four years of your life!" she announced with a broad smile.

Dean felt nauseous.

He lowered his arms to soothe his tortured stomach and hunched his shoulders to compensate. The preppy-looking girl sitting next to him with sickeningly good posture and a sweater set raised an eyebrow at him but otherwise pretended to ignore him. The boy on his other side was sprawled in roughly the same position as Dean and didn't notice. Dean glowered at both of them on principle and then turned his attention to the speechifying monster currently standing on the auditorium stage.

Maybe if one of his teachers was actually a monster he could finally convince his dad to let him be home-schooled. Pastor Jim had already agreed to do it before he realized that Dean hadn't even asked John about it.

Dean tried to concentrate on the principal for a few minutes but then determined that it really wasn't worth his time. Everyone knew that demons were way better at speechifying than this woman was.

Dean's stomach rolled again and he ignored the principal's so-called motivational speech in favour of concentrating on not tossing his cookies on the guy slumped next to him. The Priss probably deserved it, but that guy was just minding his own business. Bros before hos, dude.

Somehow Dean managed to get through the rest of the assembly without hurling on either of his seat mates. Classes were not much better. Pretty much all of them followed the same format: the teachers called roll (no name-games, thank God), introduced themselves and passed out syllabuses, then went over them in excruciating detail.

By lunch Dean's nausea had settled into a dull pain in his abdomen. He wasn't hungry but he managed to force down some of the bread from his sandwich. The afternoon was no better. He was late to his science class and had to sit next to Priss again.

"Are you okay?" she asked looking sceptically at his face, which Dean suspected was rather green.

"Peachy," Dean responded with as much force as he could manage.

Lucky for him Mr. Turke chose that moment to blow up a beaker at the front of the class and Priss' attention was off him for the rest of the period. Mr. Turke explained that this explosion had some kind of important scientific point – something about safety and chemical reactions – and proceeded to set off several other minor explosions before the bell rang. Mr. Turke was clearly a huge nerd and had been just as excited about why the explosions had happened as the explosions themselves, but he was still – by far – the coolest teacher Dean had ever had. He even managed to ignore his rebellious stomach until the end of class.

History was a double let down, because it was really dull and it was in no way a good distraction. He spent the period trying to figure out what it was he'd eaten that had caused this. He hoped John and Sammy were doing alright.

At the end of the day John was waiting for him in front of the school with the Impala, Sammy was already in the front seat and looked pleased with himself. Dean still felt like crap. The dull pain was now sharper and the nausea had yet to let up. He scowled at Sammy out of habit more than anything and slumped into the back seat.

He could see John's raised eyebrow in the rear-view mirror.

"You look like hell, Dean," John said by way of greeting.

"Yeah," Dean acknowledged with a sigh, dumping his duffle on the seat next to him and doing up his seat-belt with a wince. "School is crap. Also I think I got food poisoning."

"That sucks," Sammy agreed with the wisdom of a ten-year-old, clearly more excited to tell Dean about his good day. "My school is awesome. Everyone thought my cast was cool. And I told them the story you made up!"

("Tell them that you were mauled by a bear," Dean suggested while he was putting together some hamburger helper for dinner the night before. Sammy made a face. "Or that you were saving kids from a flaming bus."

"That doesn't make any sense! I _am_ a kid," Sammy proclaimed.

"Fine, tell them some lame story about you falling out of a tree. See if I care.")

"Which one?" Dean asked holding his stomach protectively while John sped over the bumps on the way back to their apartment.

"All of them," Sam answered with pride.

"You don't say," Dean answered, slightly impressed despite the painful distraction of his stomach.

When they got back to the apartment Sam raced toward the door as fast as he could on his crutches and waited for Dean and John to catch up at a more sedate pace.

"Are you sure you're okay?" John asked.

"Yeah," Dean assured him, trying to put as much reassurance as possible into his voice. He hoped that he wasn't as green as Priss' comment in science class had made him out to be, but Dean was used to working with what he had. "I'll just take it easy tonight, maybe puke my guts out, and hopefully I'll be fine for tomorrow."

Now there's a thought, Dean realized just as he said it, maybe he could use this stomach ache to get out of going to school. He'd have to walk a fine line to convince his dad that he was sick enough not to go to school but not so sick that John needed to worry, but Dean had done it before (once) and it was definitely worth a shot.

Sam was literally bouncing on his crutches – which Dean really hadn't known was possible until this moment – by the time they got to the door.

John looked Dean over assessingly as he pulled his keys from his pocket and then nodded slightly as if what he'd seen had convinced him that Dean was telling enough of the truth to be trusted. One of these days – maybe when he didn't have the mother of all stomach aches – Dean was going to figure out how his dad did that. He couldn't promise that he would use the power for good.

~

Dean spent the rest of the evening on the couch pretending to watch whatever crappy show Sammy picked on the television while trying to curl protectively around his middle without appearing to do so.

Sammy and dad took turns trying to feed him dinner or at least get him to drink some orange juice.

("Sammy! If you put that lasagne in front of me one more time I really am going to puke!" Dean yelled finally. "And I don't think it's just the food poisoning!")

The bass coming through the wall from their neighbour's boom box was not helping at all. It seemed to vibrate through his internal organs in a way which turned them into painful mush.

"Dean," John said softly from right above him. Dean jumped and then held his side and hissed. Last Dean had noticed John had been in the kitchen trolling through all the local papers looking for a case. He'd only shut his eyes for a second. Dad must not have found anything. "This is more than just food poisoning." John's voice was steady and low, Dean could feel it grumbling through his insides just like the bass from annoying neighbour number four. It was less than pleasant.

"No, I'm fine," Dean insisted straightening up.

John rolled his eyes and sat down next to Dean on the couch. Dean tried to look as alert and healthy as he could.

"I don't believe you," John said and leaned over to poke Dean on his right side right above the hip.

Intellectually Dean knew that he hadn't poked him hard at all, but it didn't stop him from screaming at the pain.

Dean winced at the look on John's face once the pain had subsided. There was no way he was getting out of this one. Sam came hobbling down the hallway as quickly as his crutches would carry him, the look of concern on his face made Dean feel uncomfortable in a way that had nothing to do with the pain in his side.

"So," Dean said slowly and deliberately, "there's no chance that you'd believe me if I told you I screamed because you surprised me, is there?"

"Not a chance, bucko," John assured him. "Sam, I'm taking Dean to the hospital. Don't burn down the apartment while we're gone."

"Hospital?!" Dean spluttered. "Is that really necessary?"

"Yes," John said firmly and got up to get his keys and Dean's coat. "If that's not appendicitis I'll teach you how to drive. Can you walk?"

"Of course," Dean answered getting slowly to his feet and shuffling towards the front door. "Don't worry, Sammy," he said as he passed his brother, "we'll be back soon and then I'll be able to drive you to school."

John snorted, but at least it was getting Dean to go to the hospital without too much hassle.

~

("It's appendicitis," the ER doctor told them. This one was a bit older than the one who had treated Sam's leg, but the disinterest was just the same.

"Son of a bitch," Dean swore.

John squeezed his shoulder reassuringly. "When can you get him in for surgery?" he asked.)

~

Dean awoke after the surgery to the bleachy sanitised smell of hospitals everywhere. The walls were white, the sheets were white and the bags under his father's eyes were purpley-blue.

He was definitely on the good drugs.

"I've got good news and bad news," John said once Dean had focused on his face.

"Wha..?" Dean responded articulately.

"The good news is that you won't have to go to school for a week at least."

Somewhere behind the haze of morphine Dean was rejoicing. He was pretty sure that he was smiling too, but he couldn't really feel his face.

"The bad news," John continued and he was smiling now, leaning forward and brushing a hand through Dean's hair in a comforting manner. Even drugged Dean knew this was a bad sign, but he still kinda liked it. "is that it was appendicitis. And I'm still not going to teach you to drive."

"Shit," Dean swore with vehemence and immediately winced as it pulled his stitches.

John chuckled and then called the nurse to ask for more morphine.


End file.
